Accusations, Sorrow, and Regret
by Jacay
Summary: A furious Hermione, an angry Ron, and a very misinformed and frustrated Harry = one juicy plot! Someone writes a love letter to Hermione and it's not Ron!...even though that's what the signature says. Conflicts and harsh feelings abound! Please R&R! ^_^


A/N: Yeah. Crazy. Odd. Aw, who cares? Right, this is my first HP fic, don't be afraid to tell me it sucks.   
  
Disclaimer: Yeah. I own Harry Potter. THASS it! *coughs* Right, if you believe that, I suggest you contact your local mental hospital within the next 10 seconds. I DON'T OWN HARRY POTTER, OR ANYTHING RELATED TO HIM EXCEPT FOR THE OBVIOUS! And the not so obvious, but let's not go into detail.   
  
Hermione Granger walked into the crowded Gryffindor common room with a glare in her eyes and an attempted smile on her face, which looked alot more like a grimace than a smile. Everyone in her path moved aside and gave her an odd look, but, Hermione thought, this was all for the drama of things; if they'd stopped talking all the attention would've come to me immediately. She was looking for one person, and only one: Ron Weasley. She came to him quickly; he wasn't hard to find, predictable in fact. The boy was at the table by the back wall, eating a Cauldron Cake.  
  
"RON WEASLEY!" She shouted. All attention went to her, and Ron froze, his mouth full of cake. "You lying git! You filthy, LYING, nasty, VILE GIT!!! You LIED to me!" Her eyes seemed as though they were on fire as she spat these words. Ron looked at her in confusion, then in one big gulp, swallowed what was left of his treat.  
  
"What? What are you talking about?" His brow was furrowed in his bewilderment and embarrassment. Hermione's shouts had long ago caught the attention of the crowd and the silence, now, was suffocating. "WHAT?!" He exclaimed. Hermione was positively shaking in fury.  
  
"You said that...that...you LOVED me!" She shouted, and now he could see a little glimmer of tears at the corners of her eyes. "You said that you cared for me and wanted to be with me forever! You LIED!" The tears were flowing freely now. Ron was clearly frustrated.  
  
"I never said the like!" Ron bellowed, his face a mask of puzzlement, anger, and exasperation. All humiliation was long forgotten, though it would come back when this little episode was over.  
  
"You wrote it!" And with that, Hermione flung down a piece of parchment and ran up the stairs to her room.  
  
"It's true." She whispered to herself, sitting on the edge of her bed, grasping a framed picture of Ron in her hands. "He did. He wrote it, and I believed him...I can't BELIEVE I believed him! Why am I so gullible?!" With a strangled cry she threw down the picture. The glass covering the picture and the thin ceramic frame both shattered. Hermione made no move to stop the tears; they ran freely down her face, and sobs racked her small body as she looked, bleary-eyed, at the remains of the frame.   
  
"I thought you loved me."  
---  
Ron stared at the place where Hermione had stood only seconds ago, oblivious to the silence around him, to the stares of his fellow Gryffindors, to Harry, his best friend, standing beside him timidly, to everything, in fact. Then, quite suddenly, Seamus let out a little laugh, and soon, everyone was laughing, much to Ron's relief. He jerked his head up and stared around him blankly, taking in everyone's laughing face, everyone's smiles...then he turned his eyes to Harry. The boy was just standing there, staring at him, his eyes shaking with feeling, though what the feeling was, Ron wasn't sure. They stayed like that for a moment, then Harry tore his eyes away from Ron's face and walked up to the dormitory.  
  
"Ron?" Lavender whispered, suddenly appearing in front of him. "We need to talk." Ron nodded, his throat too dry to speak. Lavender dragged the boy off to a secluded corner of the Common Room and sat him down on a red, squishy, slightly lumpy armchair, while Lavender herself sat in one directly across from it. Her face was carefully blank. "Ron." She took his hands in hers and stared into his eyes. "Do you love her?" Ron looked up, his eyes sorrowful yet alive with a fierceness Lavender had never seen before. Lavender's heart fell.  
  
"No." He answered, his face a mask of pain and...something else. "I love you." Lavender smiled, a bit of her old self coming back. She nodded satisfactorily.  
  
"That's all I wanted to know." She gave him a kiss on the cheek and stood. Ron stood with her, the hands still clasped.  
  
"I don't know what that was all about, Lavender." He said earnestly. "But I hope you know that I will always love you."  
---  
Harry sat on his bed rigidly, his fists clenched tightly at his side. Why did he do it? He thought, Why? Ron's not like that...not usually of course...but...Hermione means everything to me. Harry clenched his fists even more tightly. When I get a hold of him.... But Harry didn't have enough time to think about what he'd do, because at that very moment, Ron burst into the dormitory.  
  
"Ron." Harry said quietly. Ron simply nodded. "Why," Harry rose from the bed, "did you do it?" Ron glared at him.  
  
"Stop drawing conclusions, Harry." He responded icily. "I didn't do anything. Not one little thing! Hermione's letter, or whatever it was she got, was a fake." Harry tossed this out as though it had little importance.  
  
"Yeah." He snorted. "Like I'm supposed to believe that." Ron was beginning to get quite angry.  
  
"Look, Potter," He said the name with malice. "I am bloody sick and tired of you pretending to be the only person worth paying attention to. We all know you're in love with Hermione; there's no need to make a big show out of it and trying to get all of the pity. Why," Ron's face was contorted in fury, "you're not even worthy of it! Hermione should be getting it, not you, because she has a crush on me and was torn when she got that letter saying whatever it did, from someone claiming to be me! You," he walked over to where Harry had half-risen and pulled him up by his collar, "are a whimpering, pathetic, SULKING puppy that wants all of the attention and pity and doesn't deserve HALF of it!" Ron threw Harry back onto his bed, and he lay there, propped on his elbows.  
  
"NOT TRUE!" Harry shouted furiously, wasting no time getting it out.  
  
"It is too, and you KNOW it, Potter!!!" Ron roared back, and this time, they just glared at each other.   
  
"Prat." Harry said after a long, tense silence, and Ron knew that he'd won.  
---  
The next day, Harry and Ron took more than the amount of effort needed to be nasty to each other. Ron 'accidentally' spilled orange juice down Harry's robes, causing him to go change, Harry slammed the door to the greenhouse in Ron's face 'by mistake', both purposely flung huge dollops of an acid solution they were working with in Potions at each other. By the end of the day, they were both tired, sore, and dirty, and both very ready to collapse, but neither ready to admit (or show) this. When Ron arrived at the Common Room before Harry, he glanced around, saw the room practically empty, and took a comfortable chair in front of the fire. When the portrait of the Fat Lady swung open, he knew by the hush in the room that it was Harry and also that he was mad. The whole house knew of Harry and Ron's little fight, and everyone was ready to warn one of them that the other was near. Seamus caught Ron's eye and motioned to somewhere in back of Ron, confirming that it was Harry.  
  
Something quite suddenly hit Ron in the back of the head, the only part exposed to Harry. When Ron pulled his hand away from the something, he discovered it was slime.  
  
"Potter!" Ron shouted. He stood and wheeled around to Harry, finding the other boy clutching his wand. "Fine then, if it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get! Expelliarmus!" Harry's wand flew out of his hand and into Ron's, which he grabbed and stuffed into his robes, and with a sharp crack from Ron's wand, Harry's feet had flown out from under him. However, Harry was up in an instant, but totally defenseless along with furious. Ron smirked. "Well, great little trick you pulled, but I know better ones. This, however, doesn't quite seem like a fair fight." Ron pulled out Harry's wand again. "Here you are, dear boy." He threw it across the room; Harry dived for it and came out triumphant, having thought that Ron hadn't meant for him to get it.  
  
"You'll pay! Wingardium leviosa!" There was another sharp crack, and instead of a wand in Harry's hand and Ron floating in the air, there was a yellow umbrella in his hand, blue smoke filling the room, and Ron's feet planted firmly on the floor. Harry coughed; so did everyone else, and when the smoke cleared, the portrait hole was open and Professor McGonagall was staring around. A hush came over the room like nothing anyone had ever witnessed, and finally, McGonagall spoke.  
  
"Misters Ron Weasley and Harry Potter...I think you'd better come with me."  
---  
Ron and Harry walked behind the Professor, anxious about what was to come. They didn't dare look at each other, nor would they have wanted to, but all the same, it added to the tension between them all. Professor McGonagall sniffed loudly, and with that noise having disturbed the silence, Ron decided to speak.  
  
"Uhm...Professor?" Not response. "Just what did you want us for?" They were passing the infirmary suddenly, and McGonagall stopped there.  
  
"You'll see." They walked into the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey was sitting by a curtained bed, crying. McGonagall turned to look at the pair, and as she did, they saw tears in her eyes. Harry glanced over at Ron, and saw that he was just as wary as he. "You're going to need to stay calm." Professor McGonagall told the boys in a gentle, almost choked sounding voice. "Promise me you will." Harry nodded immediately, curious, but Ron more slowly, almost dreading the bed. He was remembering the time she'd called off a Quidditch game and had told them in the same voice they'd 'better come with me' and had taken them to the hospital wing, where she had shown them Hermione, Petrified. Professor McGonagall pulled back the curtain of the bed with no objections from Madam Pomfrey, and there lay Hermione again, her eyes wide and blank, and her body limp. 


End file.
